I think you misunderstood me on a few points but I’ll shrug or say “different strokes” to all but one: I’m not suggesting people track damage and effects on an app nor a paper printout. I think ideally both need to be tracked visibly on the table, using dice or tokens ...and I think that computers being good at counting HP isn’t the point - people can forget to click a button or click it twice just as easily as they can make a mistake on paper or card.

Battlescribe sheets can be as busy as (if not more then) your notepad. This is where the confusion can come in. All it takes is your opponent accidentally looking in the wrong spot (or you accidentally pointing to the wrong spot) for confusion to occur. All that information is great for look up, but it increases the business of the sheet, and can be misinterpreted.
Moreover, the problem with Battlescribe and your notepad is that they aren't official. We are dependent on you or a 3rd party to be accurate. Battlescribe is dependent on the author to keep it updated, so we have to hope they stay interested in the game and maintaining it.
That isn't to say cards aren't superior in every case. One can easily pick up the wrong card to show to your opponent, after all, and keeping up with erratas and edits are a pain in the arse. Privateer Press also has had misprints of their cards from time to time.
My point was just to be aware of the issues along with it. Cards are useful for many reasons, including a place to put tokens to avoid cluttering up the game space (I have seen people do this for X-Wing and WarmaHordes).
1) I disagree. On a printout, you can have multiple ships on the sheet with multiple MARs. It is a very busy document. True, there is no room to detail each MAR on a card, but they can be listed, and you are just as likely to need to be looking things up from the Fleet Manual as the card.
2) It didn't seem too much for Privateer Press games before last year. Admittedly, they are going more and more to the War Room app these days, but the cards are still an option for the grognards or those whose battery life is limited.
3) True, but why do you need to have every MAR definition on a card? In most cases, they are universal, and easily referenced. Also, it is no more difficult to keep track of upgrades on a single ship card then it is on a squadron card.
4) Apps are very cool at tracking damage as they don't forget, and are very good at math. Showing someone the damage on a ship in an app is just as easy as showing them on a card or on a Battlescribe sheet. In addition, going app doesn't mean you have to get rid of tokens. Heck, I've used both playing WarmaHordes with War Room 2.
5) Wait, you can write the TFA on a paper, but you can't write a MAR on card? This is a bit of a double standard. More to the point, no one has stated that cards are necessary, just very useful.
6) Then what are they going to review the rules on? The same thing that they were going to run an app with? The same paper that they can print a card on? What about Tokens, either on the base, a card, or a printout? There are always barriers to starting any game. And for the most part, the people who have Firestorm stuff now can proxy most of the new stuff with what they already have.

Agree with @Wolfgang Jannesen and others on a few points. Summary:
- a tool that builds fleets math is useful. We have 2 volunteer efforts already and one or both can be improved. A ledgible paper printout is no less easy to read than cards.
- 12-30 ship cards consumes too much needed space in table
- it’s difficlt to print MAR definitions and account for varied upgrades on single ship cards
- apps are not cool for tracking ship status/damage. Both players must see status/damage on the table to enable them make game decisions
- tactical fleet actions (now TAC cards) are good but cards aren’t necessary either: players could simply choose, write down on secret paper, then reveal
- when 3.0 comes out, want it easy for people to dust off models, download rules, play, say “this is better!” and then buy newer/more models, play again. I feel strongly that community does not need a barrier that they have to buy new tools/cards/bases, etc to even try 3.0

While I like how FSA movement gives that slow turn of the ship feel, it is problematic because it is impossible to determine exactly where your ship will end up without actually doing the move. Whether we use template or rotations. How often you can 'turn' and how far just changes the mechanics, but doesn't solve the basic problem. In most games, you can measure between your starting and ending point and just move the model there.
That's what I like about @Stoobert's proposal. No multiple 'movements' from shifting the template to get you to the end point. No uncertainty about just how far you can turn. Just decide on an eligible end point and put the model there with a simple rotation to an legal angle. So much faster than any alternative I've heard so far.

Not precise enough for competitive play. The Litco FSA Movement template was very handy. While it was too fat & long to be useful in the inevitable furball, it was fantastic for determining weather or not a Target was within a firing arc, which is really important when both movement and weapon fire are significantly limited.
Strangely, it just now occurred to me this combination of restricted movement (especially turning), firing arcs, and range bands is why the game works. These limitations naturally create limited playing options, which leads to the player often needing to chose between several viable choices.
The alternating activations also lead to these choices, which is why it is such a good system for Turn-based play... and why larger games are more interesting. You are more likely to have a hard time choosing which Squadron to activate when you have more options.
This naturally leads me to question: what is the point of diminishing returns for the number of Squadrons each player fields? It should be pretty clear that one extreme, two Squadrons, is too few to realiably create tough choices... while 100 is overwhelming, so the tendency is to just go with the first good-looking option.
Thankfully, someone already figured it out: 7-10. The first phone numbers were seven digits long, because a significant enough number of people had trouble remembering 8 digits. However, some players are smarter than the average bear, so they should have the option to bring a few more Squadrons.
It’s probably a happy coincidence that at 1200 points, most fleets hit this range.

We're going to have to agree to disagree here. I didn't find the cards that came with my blisters as useful as a printed battlescribe sheet, and having picked this game up during a stall in its life it wasn't easy for me I get my hands on everything all the old time players have. TAC cards and the like make me nervous because if you can't find them around you, it's off to the printer. If it doesn't sound like a big deal printing those off, that's why I don't see the need for cards.
Rather than bother with another extraneous thing to ship with each pack, I'm CERTAIN you're all capable of keeping track of a battlescribe-esque sheet (I know you have concerns with battlescribe, there is a dedicated Firestorm program made by a community member). I don't see how that would be any more or less complicated than a card, BUT it keeps warcradle from printing something we could be printing out at home with more detailed information. I'll be using these 3rd party list maker programs purely because I like having all my MAR and cohesion rules in front of me, and I like changing the upgrades and hard points depend on on the fight, which was another thing the pre-printed cards suffer for.

I still intend to get the new models as they come out. For the majority of my collection, I'll be reorganising the squadrons to make the warcradle versions into "squad leaders" (or the other way around, depending on what I currently own). I just think it would be a good idea (even if it's a few months after the warcradle models are released) to have components for those people who aren't so good at sculpting/conversion work available, so they can get their current collection to look like they're the correct scale.
I'm prepared for some of my collection (such as my 6 DW-scale trains) to be redundant, and I can deal with it. I'm an Ork player for 40k (since 1996) and repurposing things has become second nature to me.
Something I would suggest for the "new" model is having additional options in its kit, that could easily be attached to the older model (eg make it so the "new" mobile airfields have empty flight decks, and have the jump troops, gyrocopters, etc as separate elements). This means that the new model will still get bought, and veteran players can get something to unify their collections.

Aye, but battlescribe requires a 3rd party machine to operate and power to function during the game, and as said are not always as obvious to the other player. Notepads have always existed, but visually will never look as good as either cards or a tablet app

I rather disagree. With Battlescribe, the printouts can get busy, so someone may accidentally attribute one thing to another model, and that's assuming the person who wrote the Battlescribe file was perfectly accurate. When Battlescribe or the notepad are not accurate, it throws things off. Having an accurate card that you can pick up and provide to your opponent to look at with no misunderstanding is a great help.

It won't be an upgrade kit, rather there will be similar models (reworked for the new scale) that will fill the same function as a mobile airfield in games of Armoured Clash but the units they launch will be of a smaller size (rocket troops, gyros etc).
Players can use their Mobile airfield models as a 'counts as' for Armoured Clash, but there will, of course, be new models.

I think cards can work if combined with clear and bright tokens. If the card itself is purely the base stats of the ship, or is nothing more than a name and icon (stats being on a single race sheet to allow easier updating of a single document rather than reprinting and mixing up ships with different card versions); then bright tokens on the card can easily show if a ship has status effects active upon it.
One thing that would be worth considering with regard to tokens early on is the colour choices based upon colour blindness. It would be a very neat feature to make the tokens colour blind compatible (as much as is humanly possible and dealing with the most common forms of colour blindness). Another angle is, as always, to use creative shapes so that each token effect has a clear physical shape, giving both colour and shape as reference points.
On-ship info is great, but the space is always limited even on custom bases; if they can at least show shields and health that would be a big step forward in at least showing the ships most basic stat.

Information both players regularly need belongs in the shared space: the game board. From a testing standpoint, you can figure what information you need regularly by removing all information, then slowly adjust based on the pain points. If you end up with a lot of counters causing clutter, refine the game mechanics so less book-keeping is required.

Sorry for the late reply, the detaching of CAP due to disorder is a typo, the CAP will form a squadron with its assigned ship and stay that way until it or the parent unit is destroyed.
In the case of a unit where its parent is destroyed, the unit will take a Morale check and carry on as if it had lost a normal ember of the squadron.
A CAP can be affected by Carrier actions, unless some one can actually point to a contradiction.

Done!
Annihilation Gunships
Turmoil R&D's
Side on
Tried a couple of new things. After looking at WestAustralian's Xelocians, I decided to try some wet blending of my own, doing the Purple on the hulls. I think it works well, If a little obscure because of the dark colours.
Instead of the usual Interference paint used for the metallic green I tried some of Green Stuff Worlds Colour shifting paints. I was originally going with Emerald Getaway (turquoise shifting to light purple/blue ) as it most resembled my original scheme, but the effect it gave barely showed. Instead went with Martian Green (green shifting to purple) as it show up well in most light. You can even see the effect in the photos.
Hope to see everyone's progress!

What about this simple method for movement: your move value is the number of forward inches you can move. Each 45 degree turn you make during movement costs a number of inches of movement depending on the bulk of the vehicle. Turns are made in place, at any point during the move, and as many times as you want as long as you have the movement for it. This represents small maneuvering thrusters slowing the ship down and turning it, vs larger forward thrusters pushing it straight. Very easy and fast; no templates or charts or funny stuff but would still get the job done. Represents inertia well, which is really the ONLY thing in space movement (there is no hydrodynamics or aerodynamics like in naval or aerial movement which necessitate movement arcs and banked turns and whatnot).